Roy Fuller has been painting watercolor paintings for 30 years
and has developed his own unique style of watercolor painting
that involves painting quickly with big brushes and the minimum
of brush strokes.

You can also paint beautiful watercolor paintings in 30 minutes.
My method of watercolor painting is backward from most
watercolor workshops. As children we paint freely and loose when
playing with a toy watercolor sets. Then as adults we learn all
the rules, the design, the perspective, color mixing. All the
things we need to advance to the next level, but in the
process we forget how to paint loose and free. We start using
smaller brushes to add more details. We go back into the
painting to fix this and that and the next thing you know we
have mud. To keep your watercolors spontaneous and free we need
to paint quickly with big brushes using the minimum number of
brush strokes.

Here's a 15 Minute Watercolor Painting

Transparent, Translucent, Fresh & Spontaneous Watercolors

Here's another 15 Minute Watercolor Painting

Only 3 Brushes & The Three Primary Colors

A Word About My Workshops

My workshops are designed with
consideration for anyone not having a lot of experience in
watercolors or someone developing a frustration level with
watercolors. Beginners to professional artists will walk
away learning something that will improve their art work.
You'll learn the basics of design and composition to make
your watercolor paintings advance to the next level. You
don't need any painting experience or background to paint 30
minute wet into wet watercolors. You also don't need any
special drawing skills as we only use very basic outline
drawings. We focus our workshops on proper design and
composition techniques. Things like Variety, Alternation,
Gradation, Value Sketches, Center Of Interest, Dominance and
other basic essentials that many of the master painters of
the 16 century used in their paintings. Proper Design,
Composition and Perspective is a must if you want your
paintings to "POP" with freshness and have mass appeal. It
can also help your judging scores in art competitions.

My unique painting technique utilizes
the basic foundations of the watercolor medium: Paint
quickly with big brushes using the minimum number of brush
strokes. This is really the secret of doing fresh,
spontaneous and transparent watercolor paintings. Get in
quick and get out, and don't go back in again. I also paint
on a vertical easel and use gravity to help my watercolor
paint merge with the water in unpredictable ways.

I call my painting method "30 Minute
Watercolors". I'll show you how to use design techniques
to help you paint beautiful watercolors. You'll be amazed
how easy it is to paint a watercolor painting.
Anyone can do 15 minute watercolor paintings. Workshops
are focused on the basic design concepts that will improve
your watercolor paintings. I often use only the three
primary watercolor paints (Red, Yellow and Blue) and three
different sizes of big paint brushes ( 2 inch, 1.5 inch and
1/2 inch flat brushes). So the supplies are relatively
inexpensive. For better color variety I recommend two tubes
in each color but one in cool and one in warm. These six
tubes of watercolor will cover most painting situations. I
like to take a full sheet of watercolor paper and fold it
into 4 equal sections. If you paint on the front and back of
the paper you have eight paintings you can do on one full
sheet of Arches Watercolor Paper 140 lb Cold Pressed sheets.
Use a 3 inch brush on these sections to exaggerate the brush
size. All my unique watercolor painting techniques are
described online for FREE. So
it's just a matter of practice the techniques, and practice!

Roy

Six Steps To Painting 30 Minute
Watercolors:

1).
You need to select a value pattern for your watercolor painting.
In the above watercolor painting I use a large dark with a
smaller white form overlapping the larger darker area. This is a
value pattern I use a lot. You only need two or three different
value patterns to do hundred's of watercolor paintings. So pick
one or two you like and stick with then for a while.

2).
Sketch your pattern on your watercolor paper and wet both sides
completely until they are soaked. Either stretch the paper
beforehand or add clamps on the sides of your backboard to hold
the paper as it dries and shrinks. This will stretch the paper
as you paint. The paper will dry in 12 to 15 minutes.

3).
Paint your sky using variation and gradation and start adding
foliage to your middle ground. Use fresh paint each time you
pick up paint from the pallet to keep the colors glowing as they
mix. Also do your mixing on the paper. Put one color say yellow
on the wet paper and then add blue and watch the green colors
explode on the wet paper. This is a very exciting painting
method.

4).
Change the color often to add variety in color. Doesn't matter
what color, just something different.

5). Use symbols for trees, rocks, buildings, etc. Never
paint what you see, unless it's a landmark and needs to be
painted that way for recognition. Develop your own set of
symbols for things. This will make you unique as an artist. Be
sure to vary the size, color and value of your shapes or
symbols.

6). By
now the paper is dry and all you need to do is add the
foreground water and you are finished. The water should be done
in the fewest number of brush strokes possible. Three to five
strokes for an ocean!

Transparent, Translucent, Fresh & Spontaneous Watercolors

Watercolor Colors:

Beginners are often confused by all the
color hype on the market today. There are only three primary
colors but few watercolor painters paint with three colors in
their pallets. I believe many beautiful paintings can be
completed with the three primary watercolor colors, but I like
to use a cool and a warm version of each color. This also allows
you color variety as you paint. First you use the cool yellow
and then you use the warm yellow. Painting in less than 30
minutes will allow these colors to explode and mix into many
different colors. See my pallet below.

My Watercolor Palette

Blue

Pursian Blue and Aquamarine Blue

Yellow

Gamboge Yellow and Lemon Yellow

Red

Brunt Sienna and Permanent Red

My Brushes

3 inch Flat Polar Flow

2
inch Flat Polar Flow

3/4 inch inch Flat Polar Flow (rarely used)

Liner Brush - For Signatures & Tree Limbs

** I Paint With My Easel Vertical

** I use two yellows, two reds
and two blues to make up my pallet.

I use cold pressed Arches 140 lb watercolor paper for my
paintings.

Roy
John Fuller,
Watercolor Artist. Roy has been painting watercolors
for 30 years and uses a quick painting method that results in a
completed watercolor painting is less then 30 minutes. Roy is
also the founder of
International
Watercolors, an online watercolor magazine with featured
articles on many of today's top watercolor artists and upcoming
watercolor artists.

Watercolor Workshops

Workshops are
focused on the basics necessary to make a watercolor
painting come together. Things like composition, doing a
value sketch before you start painting, basic design
elements and principles that make up a great painting. These
are the things that will breath life into your watercolor
paintings. Keeping your painting applications and techniques
fresh.. His technique involves wetting the area of the
watercolor paper completely before applying any watercolor
paints. Then applying watercolor paint quickly with the
minimum number of brush strokes. The paper dries in 12 - 20
minutes. Another few minutes to work on some details and the
watercolor painting is finished. Students often comment my
paintings style look loose, clear and colorful. That's
because I paint quickly with big brushes. I have the
students do some exercises where they paint an entire
painting by the time the paper dries. They are all surprised
how great their painting look. They are forced to paint with
the minimum number of brush strokes in order to finish the
painting before the paper dries. They get in and get out of
the painting.

You only need your first impression of an
object, not all the details of the object. This is where your
symbols come in. You paint your symbol for a tree not the tree
in the photo you are looking at. After painting the symbol a
number of times you don't have to even think about it. You just
paint it.

Painting With Big Brushes

Roy Fuller offers 1, 3 and 5 day watercolor workshops in the US and
Internationally. Workshops are focused on design, composition,
color, painting loose and quickly. Roy paints many of his paintings
in less than 30 minutes. We recommend attending a one day workshop
first and then following up with a 3 - 5 day workshop later after
you have had time to practice these new techniques.

"Watercolor Painting Is Really Simple!

We make it hard.

Everyone makes watercolors too complicated. Anyone can paint
beautiful watercolor paintings with some guidance and practice. I
can't spend hours or days, let alone weeks doing a painting. I spend
most of my time planning the painting and making sure my rough
sketch is accurate. Then I wet the paper completely and start
painting as fast as I can until the paper dries. Usually 7 to 14
minutes. A few more minutes adding a few details and I am finished.
From a design standpoint, a well designed, quickly done painting
like this will be the most transparent, translucent, spontaneous and
loose painting possible. The longer you take to paint a watercolor
painting the more of the above desirable qualities you lose. Add
variety and a few other techniques and you will have a beautiful
watercolor painting. "Variety is the spice of everything nice"
Roy Fuller.